Angeliki Roumpou announces a conference on combining approaches to the study of the past 2nd December A03 Humanities Building, The University of Nottingham, full details and registration available here The Department of Classics and the Department of Archaeology within the School of Humanities at the University of Nottingham have recently merged. The research students of …

The toga party is a staple of students’ first week at university. Our resident expert on ancient clothing, Dr Nikki Rollason, explains how to impress… So, after months of waiting you’ve finally arrived at the University of Nottingham to study at the Department of Classics. But how can you show this to the world? By …

Helen Lovatt explores Classical reception and childhood creativity in the Lego Movie. This post contains spoilers. If you haven’t seen the Lego movie, watch it immediately! The Lego Movie (2014) sets creativity in competition with conformity. You can watch the ‘Everything is Awesome’ sequence on Youtube, and it gives a good flavour of the central themes …

4.5 million people tuned into BBC1 on June 1 for ‘Rome’s Invisible City’, a documentary presented by Alexander Armstrong and featuring Mark Bradley explaining the finer points of strigils and hot walnuts. Here Dr Bradley describes his experience of being involved with the programme. It was 6 a.m. on a warm September morning when Alexander …

Undergraduates Karina Field and Juliet O’Brien describe their experiences helping out at May Fest, the University’s annual community open day. Karina: To prepare for our ‘Roman-style hairdressing service’, we learned several hairstyles from Janet Stephens’ YouTube tutorials. We then recreated parts of them for the children (and parents) that were willing. We offered two styles: two …

Mark Bradley hunts for the ‘missing’ colours in the ancient world The ancient Greeks and Romans probably would have wondered what the fuss is about. They would have seen a dress that looked slightly different depending on the viewer’s angle. They might have thought it peculiar as fashion – more like a costume for comedy …

As part of the Nottingham ‘Anniversaries through Coins’ project, Larissa Ransom describes how, on this day, 20th January 175AD, Commodus was enrolled into all sacred colleges as priest Commodus (Caesar Marcus Aurelius Commodus Antoninus Augustus) was born on 31st August 161AD to Marcus Aurelius and his wife, Faustina the Younger. He was the sole surviving …

As part of the Nottingham ‘Anniversaries through Coins’ project, Matthew Myers describes how on this day, the 16th January in 27 BC, Octavian became Augustus. Following the defeat of his former ally Marc Antony and the Egyptian queen Cleopatra at the battle of Actium in 31 BC, Octavian emerged as the victor of civil war …

As part of the Nottingham ‘Anniversaries through Coins’ project, Michael Welbourn reports how, on this day the tenth of January, in 49 BC, Julius Caesar crossed the river Rubicon and precipitated the final crisis of the Roman republic. Tracing the roots of this momentous decision requires us to go back eleven years to 60 BC. …

As part of the Nottingham Anniversaries through Coins project, Robert Stone describes how on this day, 11th December, in 361, the last pagan emperor Julian II (also known as Julian the Apostate) entered Constantinople as the sole ruler of the Roman Empire. Following the death of Constantine I (337), the Empire was divided between his …

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About this blog

This blog celebrates the work of teachers and students of Classics at the University of Nottingham, reflects on teaching developments and introduces some of the aspects of the Greek and Roman world that feature in our teaching.
The main contributor is Helen Lovatt, Associate Professor in Classics, who has published books on Greek and Roman epic, and articles on Latin literature and its reception, but other members of the department will also write guest posts.